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Justin McCauley armed jets with bombs and other munitions on the deck of the carrier USS Kitty Hawk as the United States began its air campaign in Afghanistan.
But McCauley, a Navy aviation ordnanceman, 21, liked the idea of being a Navy SEAL better. Though he never had qualified for even a single day of SEAL training, he told his mother and three brothers in Roseville that he was a rising member of the Navy's elite Sea-Air-Land special forces. And in doing so, he joined the growing number of people who publicly claim military status and valor that are not rightly theirs.
And so it was that, on Jan. 20, The Bee chronicled the family story of a Navy SEAL impostor. McCauley posed for family photos in a military jacket with a Navy SEAL patch on the breast, said he suffered slight shrapnel wounds while on the ground in Afghanistan, talked of a 9 ½-month SEAL training stint in San Diego.
This week, his family and The Bee learned the truth from a watchdog group of retired Navy SEALs and, subsequently, Navy officials at the Pentagon and on the Kitty Hawk itself: McCauley is not a SEAL. The jacket patch is a fake. He was never on the ground in Afghanistan nor injured by a fragment grenade.
Reached at the home of his fiancée in Cleveland, where he was completing a month's leave, McCauley admitted that he fabricated many details of his military service to The Bee. In the same breath, however, he still claimed: "I wasn't in (SEAL) training for more than a week, but my mom didn't know that I had dropped training, and I didn't want to let her down. So I just kind of went along with it."
But the truth is that McCauley never entered SEAL training for any length of time, according to records kept by both the Naval Personnel Command and the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) school in Coronado. McCauley has been assigned to the Kitty Hawk since April 2000, barely six months after he enlisted.
The repercussions for McCauley's deception could be dire. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Gordon, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters at Pearl Harbor, refused to speculate on the full range of disciplinary possibilities, but confirmed that they could include administrative penalties on board the Kitty Hawk, or demotion in rank, or even a bad-conduct discharge from the Navy.
Gordon said the Kitty Hawk was conducting its own investigation and that the matter of discipline would be left to the carrier's commanding officer, Capt. Tom Hejl.
"When sailors misrepresent themselves, that's a disappointment to us all," Gordon said.
The revelations were a shocking blow to McCauley's mother and three younger brothers, who had earnestly told The Bee of the worries and pride that engulf the family of a Navy SEAL.
"We're very disappointed," said McCauley's mother, Maria Domingue, who added that she sobbed all day Tuesday when she learned the truth. "I would have accepted him even if he was a janitor on the Kitty Hawk. He was in the Navy. I was very proud of him. He didn't have to fabricate a story. It's hurt the family, and it's hurt his brothers."
Since being recalled from leave to the Kitty Hawk in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, McCauley had told his family about his special-operations ground raids in Afghanistan and of being struck by shrapnel from a "frag grenade" while in a ground conflict.
Justin McCauley armed jets with bombs and other munitions on the deck of the carrier USS Kitty Hawk as the United States began its air campaign in Afghanistan.
But McCauley, a Navy aviation ordnanceman, 21, liked the idea of being a Navy SEAL better. Though he never had qualified for even a single day of SEAL training, he told his mother and three brothers in Roseville that he was a rising member of the Navy's elite Sea-Air-Land special forces. And in doing so, he joined the growing number of people who publicly claim military status and valor that are not rightly theirs.
And so it was that, on Jan. 20, The Bee chronicled the family story of a Navy SEAL impostor. McCauley posed for family photos in a military jacket with a Navy SEAL patch on the breast, said he suffered slight shrapnel wounds while on the ground in Afghanistan, talked of a 9 ½-month SEAL training stint in San Diego.
This week, his family and The Bee learned the truth from a watchdog group of retired Navy SEALs and, subsequently, Navy officials at the Pentagon and on the Kitty Hawk itself: McCauley is not a SEAL. The jacket patch is a fake. He was never on the ground in Afghanistan nor injured by a fragment grenade.
Reached at the home of his fiancée in Cleveland, where he was completing a month's leave, McCauley admitted that he fabricated many details of his military service to The Bee. In the same breath, however, he still claimed: "I wasn't in (SEAL) training for more than a week, but my mom didn't know that I had dropped training, and I didn't want to let her down. So I just kind of went along with it."
But the truth is that McCauley never entered SEAL training for any length of time, according to records kept by both the Naval Personnel Command and the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) school in Coronado. McCauley has been assigned to the Kitty Hawk since April 2000, barely six months after he enlisted.
The repercussions for McCauley's deception could be dire. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Gordon, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters at Pearl Harbor, refused to speculate on the full range of disciplinary possibilities, but confirmed that they could include administrative penalties on board the Kitty Hawk, or demotion in rank, or even a bad-conduct discharge from the Navy.
Gordon said the Kitty Hawk was conducting its own investigation and that the matter of discipline would be left to the carrier's commanding officer, Capt. Tom Hejl.
"When sailors misrepresent themselves, that's a disappointment to us all," Gordon said.
The revelations were a shocking blow to McCauley's mother and three younger brothers, who had earnestly told The Bee of the worries and pride that engulf the family of a Navy SEAL.
"We're very disappointed," said McCauley's mother, Maria Domingue, who added that she sobbed all day Tuesday when she learned the truth. "I would have accepted him even if he was a janitor on the Kitty Hawk. He was in the Navy. I was very proud of him. He didn't have to fabricate a story. It's hurt the family, and it's hurt his brothers."
Since being recalled from leave to the Kitty Hawk in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, McCauley had told his family about his special-operations ground raids in Afghanistan and of being struck by shrapnel from a "frag grenade" while in a ground conflict.
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